


romance (in the palm of your hand)

by benwvatt



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, love is real!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 14:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benwvatt/pseuds/benwvatt
Summary: jake/amy one-shots. they can't help it if they spend every last moment thinking of each other.





	1. drive me home, i know i'm sober

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Listen, whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” he asks, taking his eyes off of the road lit by headlights to glance at her. “We’re already engaged, right? Would it be so terrible to start our family a little earlier than scheduled?”

“You were right,” Amy sighs, letting her car keys drop onto the end table and kicking her heels off. “I can’t believe it, but you were _right.”_

“Excuse me?” Jake frowns, yawns, rubs his eyes. Victor’s watch feels heavy on his wrist, as if shouldn’t be there. He isn’t one for family heirlooms, doesn’t feel he deserves anything of this caliber, but it’s here and it’s his and it’s now.

“Turkey tastes like napkins,” Amy retorts, letting her purse fall to the floor as she walks to the sofa. “And having to try _two_ to keep our families from arguing doesn’t help.”

“How ‘type A’ of you,” he chides, sitting down and slinging an arm over her shoulder. “Or should I say controlling?”

“Type A,” she says, laughing, burying her head into his chest. “Just type A.”

And Jake ignores the weight of the world on his shoulders, instead choosing to run his fingers through Amy’s hair, half instinct and half practice. He pulls her in the way he has for two years, the way he plans to for the rest of their lives, when Amy’s breath hitches and she pushes him forward.

“You okay?”

“I really didn’t want to do this here.” Her eyes are repentant, her mind unsure as she spins the engagement ring back and forth, wearing the skin of her fourth finger raw. “I’m sorry, but I have to say something.”

“Wait…” His stomach lunges and he’s thinking back to Grey’s Anatomy, Cristina sobbing and suffocating in her wedding dress, screaming to have it torn _off_ because she can’t last another minute being reminded of what she lost. “This isn’t about our fight, is it? ‘Cause, Ames, I know we got _mad,_ but I still want to marry y-”

“I’m not leaving. Promise.” Her voice sinks a little deeper, breaking a bit. “I just didn’t know if you noticed I was acting a little weird tonight. Y’know, since I didn’t have a drop of wine or even that expensive Cuban rum my dad offered.”

“You said you were the designated driver, a-and that you were quote-unquote _leaving more alcohol for our parents,”_ he murmurs, dejectedly dropping her hand from his. “Were you lying?”

There’s panic painted across her face, the same stricken look he recalls from the night he went undercover. This exact memory is imprinted into his brain, he knows, remembering six months’ worth of arriving home and missing her and wishing more than anything she were next to him, her hair tied back and pantsuit neatly ironed. She’s here now, mirroring his every expression, and yet this doesn’t feel any easier.

“Truth be told, I’m not feeling that well,” Amy admits, ears reddening. She folds her hands in her lap prayer-style, trying to keep herself from reaching for a cigarette 一 there’s a pack hidden in the lint filter of the washing machine, they each know, and it hasn’t been touched for weeks.

“Is that all?” Jake dotes over her the way he knows best, tossing a blanket across her lap before he picks up the car keys on his way out the door. “You want me to run to the store for a wedding-planner-slash-fiancée care package, Ames?”

“Um, that’s alright. I can go buy it myself, if it’s not too trouble?”

“Amy, that’s ridiculous, you’re sick-”

Her face falls. “No, I should go. You wouldn’t know what to shop for.”

“What, I can’t find your vitamin-B supplements, unscented tissues, and organic local honey?”

“No, not that,” she mumbles under her breath, “you wouldn’t know where to find the pregnancy tests.”

Forget the weight of the world, it feels as if Atlas just let go of the globe and everything’s slipping, crashing, breaking, and the life calendar above their bed with it.

* * *

“I bought two,” Amy exhales, tearful and breathless as she holds up the plastic Wal-Mart bag. She’s wearing three layers of clothing too many (title of her sex tape 一 well, really, now is _not_ the time to make sex jokes) and her breath is almost visible in the nighttime air as she opens the driver’s side door and gets in.

“You look like you went shopping for Y2K,” Jake murmurs, eyes a little watery, hands running along the nape of her neck before he kisses her for what feels like the tenth time tonight. Internally, he isn’t half as calm as he acts. _Is that too old an expression? Will anyone understand it? Is he_ already _making dad jokes just in case Amy’s pregnant?_

“It was …” she puffs, pulling her scarf toward her face, “It was the Black Friday lineup. Hundreds and hundreds of ‘em, Jake, all waiting for discount electronics and desktop lamps and who _knows_ what! I would’ve lined up too, if it weren’t for the whole ‘possibility of an unborn baby’ thing.”

“C’mon, switch seats with me. I’m driving home. You’ve had enough stress for one night.” Jake undoes his seatbelt, leaves the shotgun open, and changes the gear to reverse, so cognizant of all this he doesn’t understand it himself. It’s like time is slowing down just for these fifteen minutes. His right hand intertwines with Amy’s left, feeling the ring around her finger, and he holds on to something concrete in the midst of all this chaos.

“Listen, whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere, okay?” he asks, taking his eyes off of the road lit by headlights to glance at her. “We’re already engaged, right? Would it be so terrible to start our family a little earlier than scheduled?”

“I suppose not,” Amy concedes, pulling the strings of Jake’s hoodie tighter. Her voice softens, too nervous to stay silent forever. “Thank you. Thank you for everything. I love you, you know that.”

“I love you too. So much.”

The chatter dies down, the radio crackling with static and faint notes off of Taylor Swift’s _Reputation_. Amy looks out the window, the breeze drifting through her hair, and her heart feels the slightest bit safer under the weight of all this as she sees the moon following them home.

* * *

Jake’s hands shiver of their own accord as he presses the elevator button. Next to him, Amy clutches the plastic bag and twists the thin material of its handles around her fingers, watching the numbers change as they rise past the first floor.

“Thank you for doing this again,” she mumbles, sighing as she pats at the keys in her coat pocket. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”

“Ames, you think I’d just sit at home and make you drive this late?” Something feels like it’s cracking inside of him. “Not a chance.”

Jake takes Amy’s fragile hand, walks her to their apartment door as she steps over the threshold before he does. He thinks about carrying her over instead for the tenth time since he proposed.

“So, uh, I’m gonna go,” Amy mumbles once inside, pointing at the bathroom door. She’s still clutching the Wal-Mart bag, the tests swaying back and forth. “See you on the other side, I guess?”

He frowns. “I guess.” With that, Amy enters the restroom in silence and Jake heads for the couch, his head full of thoughts too early to express. It’s been thirty seconds and he’s already lonely 一 she’s on the other side of the door, for fuck’s sake, it’s not like she even _left._

“Jake?” Her voice calls, tentative and soft. Evidently, she’s feeling the same way, so he makes his way to the bathroom and knocks on the door.

“Can I come in, Ames?”

“Yeah. Just talk about anything. Distract me.” A pause sits in the air. “I miss you from the other room. Is that dumb?” The lock clicks open. Her legs are criss-crossed on the floor, her back against the ground-level cabinets stocked with shampoo and glass cleaner.

Time feels a little less frozen, counting down from three crucial minutes, and it might be coincidence, but the pain eases a bit once she sees him. The tile is cold but not unbearable, and she reaches for his hand, pulling him down with her.

“What, you unlocked the door and sat back down?” Jake asks, smirking and sitting down next to her.

He’s distracting her as best he can, trying to let the time fly over their heads so much so that they forget what they’re even waiting for. It works plenty well when either of them have a bad dream or moment of frenzy. Some problems, though, aren’t as easily defeated.

“No,” Amy scoffs, pressing a quiet kiss to his cheek, “I unlocked it while sitting down. _Duh.”_ Dread doesn’t pool in her chest as quickly when he’s around, she’s noticed, and she pushes away the thought of the upside-down pregnancy test currently flat on the bathroom counter.

“Right, right. How could I have been so foolish?” He laughs without a reason, nervous, unsure of what he wants. It’s murder to distract someone when he can’t stop thinking, can’t stop shaking his leg and waiting for the answer to come to him.

“Sorry I’m acting like a mess. It’s the … well, y’know. I don’t have to say it.” She looks at him tearfully, her face red with exhaustion, and rests her head on his shoulder. “One minute, forty-two seconds.”

“What?”

“The time until the test’s done. I figured you were thinking about it.”

“You know me too well.” Jake counts down, keeping his eyes on Amy’s great-grandfather’s watch (would that make him a great-grandfather-in-law to Jake?) and pulling his fiancée in once more. “Listen, whatever the result is, we have each other.”

She nods in understanding, her stomach in limbo; biting back the cold wince that nearly escapes as she glances at the phone 一 _one minute, twenty-nine seconds_ 一 she stops breathing for a moment, not knowing just how guilty to feel that she wants one thin line on that drugstore test.

“Worried, huh?” Amy asks, ignoring the ache in her neck and squeezing Jake’s hand three times. “It’s not unusual.”

He stares ahead at the wall, etching those foxtrot marks in his memory, and nods back. “I am. I know it’s normal, I just - have a headache. It’s been a long night. I wish we were already married.”

“Me, too,” she whispers, tearing her eyes from the phone screen to look at him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

They help each other up. Jake’s head spins (thanks, gravity) and his feet have fallen asleep, but Amy holds his hand all the way to the living room, laughing at his awful pace. It feels farther on the way back, yet lighter, a phone and watch and worries left behind on the bathroom counter.

“I love you,” Jake murmurs, Amy lying on top of his chest, “but I really, _really_ hope you’re not pregnant.”

“Oh, I’m so happy,” she blurts back, eyes wide. “I was so afraid you wanted a baby right now. Or _babies,_ plural - you know twins run in my family. Triplets, too, now that I think about it.”

“It’s like a head start,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair. “You know, if it’s positive, we could push the wedding forward and all, start our family earlier than usual-”

Her phone rings from the bathroom, pierces the air with a special sort of shock, and she walks in alone. The door’s left ajar, creaking a little as Amy pulls at the handle and bites the inside of her cheek. A hand pressing along the counter’s edge, her breaths hasten slightly, waiting for the endless gravity of the next moment. And there’s one line on the little glass screen, one sleek blue slash making everything okay again, and Amy steps out of the bathroom holding the test in her hand, her pulse returning to normal.

“It’s what we wanted,” she murmurs, smiling as she shoves the test into the pocket of her (stolen) NYPD hoodie and slings her arms around Jake’s neck. He’s home, home, home to her, and she wouldn’t want anything less, except-

“But, you know, sometime? A little while after May 15th?” he asks hopefully, Amy’s cheek cupped in one of his hands.

Amy thinks back to that second pregnancy test, still sitting in the red-and-white plastic bag and waiting to be used. “Yeah, sometime. Definitely sometime.” It’s on the Peralta-Santiago life calendar over their bed and everything. He didn’t even need to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to my rant soulmate, my glasses-wearing and glasses-losing friend. i'll be over here, sharing everything i write with you. good luck sorting through my bad ideas to get to the good ones.


	2. hearts traced onto her hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy isn’t as headstrong as the light flickers yellow above her eyeline, as if driving slower will somehow preserve the ambiguous boundary between ‘detective’ and ‘sergeant.’ She takes his hand halfway through, absentmindedly running the pad of her thumb over his palm.

Amy Santiago’s easy. It’s no insult, no misnomer, no issue 一 ugh, not easy like a kiss and a touch and you were in bed with me and somehow it’s bad that girls want sex because come _on_ , it’s 2018 and feminism’s been around for ages一 she’s easy the way she walks, the way her eyes go soft when she sees him. Her speech is easy, all vocabulary taken off of his ‘word-of-the-day’ calendar, and she always grins at him just so when he says her name. It’s enough to make his heart flip in his chest, _she’s_ enough to die for, to come back to life for. That choice is easy.

Jake can hear her ambling across the ground in their bedroom as he gets dressed for work, slinging his badge around his neck as he tilts his head past the frame of the closet door. She clips a bronze badge, polished so much so she can see her reflection in it, to her belt. Amy touches it quietly, cautious to smudge it with fingerprints, gingerly rubbing the back of her neck as worry gently paints across her face.

He knows she was up half the night just trying to fall asleep, thinking about anything and everything to forget the inevitable. At work, there are no more desks opposite each other, no adjacent nameplates, no seats waiting to be filled. In this moment, Amy Santiago’s life is somehow breaking apart and mending at the seams a little too easily.

At work, there’s a promotion waiting for her. At work, she’s everything she ever wanted. She's the sergeant, and she’s halfway sure her deskspace has the kind of isolation that only superiors can appreciate.

“You know, this was, this _is_ your dream,” Jake murmurs, walking up to her, glimpses of love casting their shadows from behind each word. His eyes join hers in kind understanding.

“From before _we_ were dating,” she replies, and her glance flicks forward to the life calendar hanging over their bed.

“Yeah.” He gives her shoulder a squeeze. “We should get going, babe. Can’t miss your first day as my boss.”

* * *

The ride to the Nine-Nine is slow. Amy isn’t as headstrong as the light flickers yellow above her eyeline, as if driving slower will somehow preserve the ambiguous boundary between ‘detective’ and ‘sergeant.’ She takes his hand halfway through, absentmindedly running the pad of her thumb over his palm.

“You’re tracing hearts again,” he mutters. “You know, you do that once in a while when you’re sleeping. It’s cute, even if it’s startling to wake up to the trace of someone else’s fingers on your skin.”

“Sorry, I - I didn’t know.” Her ears flush a shade redder. “It’s a family thing. Not _te amo,_ not _I love you._ Just hearts ghosted onto hands until the sensation won’t go away, like it’s almost tattooed on.”

He’d kiss her if she weren’t behind the wheel right now. “I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing. It’s sweet, really.”

“It calms me down.” She stops to intertwine their fingers. “‘S almost a reflex at this point. I just … I’m just not great with change. That night you left to go undercover? I was a wreck. I even used that spare apartment key you gave me to steal a few of your shirts. They still smelled like you. When you went into WITSEC, I started keeping a bottle of your aftershave in your bathroom. It reminded me that you were coming back someday. And don’t even get me started on Jericho Supermax prison. We just keep getting separated.”

“Ames, getting a promotion and rising through the ranks is a good thing. It’s not a separation. We’ll see each other all the time, even if we’re at different precincts. We’re getting married. We have the rest of our lives to fall apart and come back together.” His eyes flick over to her left hand, as do hers.

Jake thinks back to that night, to the seemingly stone-cold weight of that ring box in his pocket and the flips his stomach was doing, waiting for her to walk in. He remembers the sound of Nana’s voice when he finally says _“I’m telling you, Amy found this typo in her crossword puzzle and that was it”_ and she tells him he should use the family heirloom ring that Roger didn’t get to use (“A useless man if I ever met one,” Nana complains, and Jake has to hold back his laughs.)

He knows it’s easy to go home to her, and he knows it’ll still be easy when she’s sergeant and he remains detective. When they arrive at the precinct, she polishes her badge once more, and Jake makes funny faces in the gold reflection before he wishes her good luck.

* * *

“And then what happened?” he murmurs, sitting up in the sofa and massaging hearts into Amy’s back.

“Well, obviously he didn’t _know_ that case 45AX2T-J was already closed! I caught him in a lie! Turns out he was playing golf in his off hours. Captain Jebediah can kiss that promotion goodbye.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Jebediah?” he asks, laughing.

She sighs as his fingers work through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. “It’s some sort of nickname that latched on ages ago. I have no idea where it’s from!”

He rolls his eyes. “Well, _sergeant,_ if you can’t solve the case of the crooked captain’s real name-”

“I’m the reason the entire NYPD knows that he’s a crooked captain! They won’t give the commissioner job to a hack because I figured out which cases were and weren’t getting investigated!” she protests, turning around to face him, still grinning.

“Think, that could be you someday.”

“You think I’m going to start golfing and putting down false hours on my timecard?” Amy frowns. “Thanks a lot.”

He groans. “No, I meant that you could be commissioner someday. You know, I’ll just go back to giving you a massage.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She pauses. “You’re pretty good at it, actually.”

 _“Actually?_ How insulting.” A smile tugs at his lips. “You know, maybe I could try braiding your hair, as long as we’re in this position.”

“I’ve heard horror stories from Gina about your makeover nights. You got gum in her hair when you were trying to blow a bubble! Absolutely not.”

Jake scoffs. “You make _one_ mistake, and suddenly you’re not allowed to do anything. You know, I bet Terry used to mess up once in a while when he was doing hair, and he still does fine with Cagney and Lacey! I want to be the same kind of dad to our kids.”

“And you will be,” she replies. “It’s on the life calendar in our bedroom and everything.”

He pulls Amy into a kiss, hands at bases of her thighs before she pushes him forward onto the couch, back pressing against the armrest. “Mmm, speaking of the bedroom …”

“That’s a little inappropriate, detective.” She reprimands, still smiling. “And I should know. Haven’t you heard I’m a sergeant at the Nine-Nine?”

Like he said, it’s easy loving her.


	3. april twenty-ninth (part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“My dad used to make clown pancakes for my family every weekend. Even for my mom. She loved it,” she tells him, eyes soft against everything else broken and bittersweet. “Um, I was thinking … maybe we could do that, too.”_
> 
> _“You want me to make pancakes for your mom?” He replies, frowning before the realization hits. “...Oh. Yeah, I’d - I’d love that.”_
> 
> What happens the day after April 28th.

It’s almost infuriating, not getting to confess this secret in her.

He feels two years too old for these thoughts, like the chills are running up his spine as Amy double tucks 一 “I was talking to Majors about _you,”_ she only tells him a year later, hiding a smile behind her hand over a platter of cheese pizza over at Sal’s. “You and your sunglass choreography and that one time you brought six miniature poodles into the interrogation room just to cheer me up because they’re, like, the only dogs I’m not allergic to. It was always you.”

They’d gone home after that. She’d kissed him, her hand running over the nape of his neck, and they’d watched Die Hard until she fell asleep against his chest on the couch, the way she was willing to do for years and years after that.

It’s April 29th and Jake Peralta rolls out of bed, pretending to have a fever he doesn’t have.

All of his words are tinged with the exhaustion he has whenever he’s ill, and guilt starts lacing his intentions when Amy simply brushes his forehead with the palm of her hand, concern clear on her face. “I guess you might’ve caught something last week at the doctor’s-”

“Going to doctor’s office is a scam, Ames, I already told you,” he jokes back, faking a cough immediately after. She bids him goodbye as softly as she can, all loving looks instead of a kiss, and he wants to tell her right then and there. Amy always knows his secrets; it’s not fair, keeping this from her. It feels like the gravity of this truth might kill him before anything else gets the chance.

Jake Peralta calls in sick and he can almost hear the laugh in Captain Holt’s response. “Captain, I, um, really can’t come in today-”

“Yes, I understand, Santiago told me you were home sick with the stomach flu.”

“Stomach flu? What, no, I-” he chokes back confusion, sitting up straighter in bed. “This is that thing I told you about yesterday, _remember?”_

“Peralta, I fully remember. I’m trying to make up an excuse for you. Now, go buy an engagement ring before Santiago storms in, so worried she can’t concentrate.” Captain Holt hangs up with startling nonchalance, glancing over at the windows to ensure _all_ the blinds are closed. He can’t have Amy lip-reading this last conversation, and he simply grins, knowing the rest of her life is just around the corner.

It’s April 29th and Jake’s sitting on a leopard-print sofa in Gina’s apartment, a pop song he’s never heard blasting over the radio. His heartbeat is an erratic song and he can’t help but shake his leg, talking about how they should get going already, all the stores will be closed, she’s _Amy_ and she needs the perfect ring and simply choosing will take hours, let alone the traffic at this time of day-

“Why don’t you give her the one Nana used?” Gina asks, brow raised, strolling out of the bathroom with her hands stuffed into the pockets of a fluffy, blue bathrobe. She tosses him a black, velvet box with so much ease in her swing, it’s like they’re six and playing softball again, sliding into home plate and laughing so loudly they can’t hear anything else.

The breath catches in his lungs. Something switches in Jake’s brain as he catches the prize in two shaky hands, clinging on more tightly than he should. “Nana gave you her engagement ring? And you carry it in your _bathrobe?!”_

She crosses her arms, sitting down next to Jake on the couch with an uncommonly kind expression on her face. “I dug it out of my safe as soon as you asked to come over, nerd.”

“You have a safe in your apartment?” he repeats, incredulous. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Gina, knuckles paling as he subconsciously clutches the ring box.

“You _don’t?”_ A scowl sours her face. “You need some life planning, kiddo. No wonder you came to me for help proposing to Santiago. You need it.”

Jake returns her negativity with a sigh so annoyed, it could make flowers wilt. “I’m going to propose to Amy on my own, okay? I just have to … plan something. I can’t plan if I don’t even have a ring.” He lays his head on her shoulder tentatively. “She thinks I’m at home, sick. I hate lying to her. Makes my skin sort of crawl. So today has to be worth it. I have to tell her months from now that it all worked out in the end.”

Gina’s tone softens. “She’ll love it, okay? You should hear seven-drink Amy talk about you. She always tells me you guys’ll end up moving to a nice neighborhood with a community pool, and getting a two-story house to impress all the PTA moms at one of the _good_ public elementaries.” She takes the box from in between his absentminded hands, opening it with a click. The ring inside is silver, three small flowers each with a diamond nestled inside and fused to the band.

“She really tells you all that?” Jake asks, seemingly shy. “I just figured it was a pipe dream of ours.”

“Don’t sweat the proposal, okay? You don’t have to plan everything. She’s already gonna say yes.” She passes the engagement ring back to him. “And, yeah, Nana gave me the ring to give to someone, but I’m picking you, pineapples.” Gina presses a kiss to his cheek, leaving a lip-gloss print he has to scrub off later. It’s worth it.

When Jake inevitably drives home on April 29th, he hides the velvet box somewhere Amy will never go. He doesn’t have a safe (“goose, is it behind a painting like in all those movies?” “sure, let’s say one of them’s behind a painting.” “wait, _one_ of them?”), but he has the next best thing.

* * *

Jake starts planning the actual proposal with one of those ‘what NOT to do’ lists. Number one, slash ‘will you marry me?’ into her tires, one word per wheel. It’d probably be really hard to read, not to mention illegal and suspicious and very expensive. But that just makes him think of the time she taught him how to change his oil, her hair up in a ponytail as she wore that academy tanktop from her twenties, and then he thinks about walking home from the apartment parking garage and hopping in the shower with her and making up the worst car puns he can think of during said shower (what do you call a storm in the mediterranean? greece-d lightning!)

Reminiscing just makes him want to marry her all over again, and he _cannot_ propose by slashing her tires.

Don’t even get him started on number two. It involves custom horseshoes so it reads will-you-marry-me all together, and then he has to somehow get a horse (renting? buying??) and take it to a beach so the message reads clearly when it walks on the shoreline. He also has no idea how to convince Amy to go a beach just to see a random horse, but it’s not like he can get custom horseshoes anyways.

Number three involves skywriting, but it’s probably too smoggy in Brooklyn to read anyways. The last time Jake saw a proposal in the sky, grey and brown and broken blue patches of color, most of the letters were whisked away before anything could be done (‘karen, true love, marry me?’ became ‘rent me’ in the saddest mistake he’s ever seen.)

Number four is putting the ring in her drink, because Amy always closes her eyes when she takes a sip and she might just end up swallowing the thing, which means he’d have to learn the Heimlich maneuver just in case.

It isn’t until idea number twelve that Jake Peralta decides ‘what NOT to do’ lists aren’t such a good idea. He made a binder with a false label and everything (‘guide to tricking Amy’s dad’) before shredding the pages to keep Amy from seeing them, and then he starts another list for actual ideas.

After the first few, slashing her tires doesn’t sound _that_ bad anymore.

* * *

Amy Santiago decides she wants to marry Jake Peralta on a Saturday morning.

It happens after he wakes up, eyes bleary with the light from the windows, her side of the bed already cold. She’s standing at the doorframe, arms crossed in self-satisfaction until she notices he’s stirring; can’t have him spoil the breakfast she pulled together at the spur of the moment.

In all honesty, _spur of the moment_ ’s a little general. Of course, she hadn’t thought of any of this until half an hour ago, but she has a plan in place. He’s supposed to stumble out of bed and into the kitchen, slowly, the way he always does when she’s gotten out of bed first. Only then will he find the french toast and waffles and fresh strawberries sitting at the table, even an unopened bottle of whipped cream sitting at the counter. (You don’t date Jake Peralta for two and a half years to forget the whipped cream, she thinks contentedly, espying him from through a crack in the laundry room door.)

Of all the emotions she’d expected, frustration wasn’t one of them.

“Amy Santiago, you’re the worst,” he blurts out. “Wait, no, the best! It’s just that _I_ was gonna do this! ”

She practically dies laughing, ears flushing red as she walks out and kisses him against the refrigerator, a few of the magnets pressed against her back. The kitchen looks golden, good and gentle light pouring in from through the windows, and their shadows shift and meld as Jake grabs her hand, tugs her to the table. He tells her loves her first, and she means it a little differently when she says it back. The moment may become tangled up in time as Amy looks over her boyfriend’s shoulder, a smiley-face waffle with strawberries for eyes and a whipped-cream smile looking back at her, but it’s always going to be there.

“My dad used to make clown pancakes for my family every weekend. Even for my mom. She loved it,” she tells him, eyes soft against everything else broken and bittersweet. “Um, I was thinking … maybe we could do that, too.”

“You want me to make pancakes for your mom?” He replies, frowning before the realization hits. _“...Oh._ Yeah, I’d - I’d love that. You’re family for me.”

“I love you,” Amy says a second time, cheeks reddening as she smiles at him. “I really do.”

A few months after April 28th, she falls a little deeper in love with him.

Nana’s engagement ring is three feet away at the back of one of their kitchen cabinets, buried in a box of index cards Amy bought when she was drunk and thought she could start writing down recipes. It lasted about two days, and her chicken alfredo tasted worse than her baked ziti; it’s a sore subject, and she doesn’t dare go near the recipe box. And Jake itches for that ring (he’s worse than Smeagol), silver and white, for the tenth or fifteenth or fiftieth time since he laid eyes on it. He itches to tell her that _amazing_ Lord of the Rings joke and to talk all about Gina’s bathrobe, because Amy always has the best Gina conspiracies. He just wants to get this weight off his chest because it’s going to suffocate him soon.

In the end, he doesn’t go near that cabinet. He calms the jitters in his legs and the goosebumps all over his arms and tells himself to wait for another day, even if he’s cursing himself all the while for letting this Saturday morning go.

* * *

“...And now she won’t stop bringing our future up, Captain!” Jake protests, eyes darting to the blinds to triple-check they’re shut. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I mean, I really do want to marry her, but I think she’s onto me.”

Holt laughs a little. “You’re overthinking it. Just throw her off the trail. Give her _another_ surprise, and try and avoid the marriage topic.”

“You really think that’d work?”

“I don’t see why not. Kevin fell for it.” He shrugs. “Good luck proposing, Peralta.”

Jake walks out of the captain’s office a few seconds later, ignoring the few heads that turn as the door swings shut. He just looks down at his feet, mismatched socks and expensive kicks, on the way back to his desk. Amy raises a curious eyebrow as he sits down, and all that miserable doubt rises up again.

“So … you’ve been spending an awful lot of time in Holt’s office lately,” she says, half-suspicious, the way she always is when something piques her interest. “Any reason?”

“Captain was just, um, going over the details of my latest case. He thinks it might be related to this … strangler from a couple years back,” Jake musters, hoping the lie sounded more plausible out loud than in his head.

She nods. “It’s no big deal, you know. I was just curious, as your partner in work and, uh, in life.” Amy tries not to think about the men’s engagement ring practically burning a hole in the secret pocket of her purse, tries not to think about the glint of the silver against black velvet. She’d snuck out of the apartment one Sunday morning when Jake was sleeping in, hopping onto the backseat of Rosa’s motorcycle (“you brought an extra safety helmet, right, Diaz? and goggles, do bikers wear goggles? is there a safety belt that you’ve just never mentioned before?”) and riding into town.

“Oh. Thanks. Love ya,” Jake replies, uncomfortably clipping the ends of his sentences short. Holt said to divert her attention, right? “Hey, I was thinking, we should do something soon.”

“As in…?”

He runs a hand through his hair nervously. “We could do another overnight stay at the library, ‘cause you’re a VIP member now. We’ve been dating, like, two and a half years now. That’s what, a hundred months?”

“Thirty,” she corrects, clearly holding back a grin, “and that does sound like a good idea. Thank you for suggesting this.” Amy presses a kiss to his cheek before walking back to her desk. “Oh, and good luck with that strangler you were talking to Holt about.”

As if on cue, the captain’s door opens. “Speaking of, Detective Peralta, won’t you come in again? I think we have a new lead on that, uh, no-good _punk.”_

Jake sighs, waving goodbye to Amy before he steps into Holt’s office once again. The door swings shut with a terribly familiar sound, and his neck is almost sore from glancing at the blinds for the fourth time today. He plops onto the couch. “Captain, you have to help me find a strangler to arrest!”

“We have bigger fish to fry,” Holt snaps, arms crossed. “What’s all this anniversary business? I told you to distract her!”

“Well, I thought I could bring up a milestone-”

Captain Holt sighs, seemingly exhausted, as if to call Jake an amateur for not having planned this better. “I thought you would bring up her promotion to sergeant or something, not a _personal_ achievement between the two of you. Have you never proposed to anyone before?”

“That’s the point! I haven’t!” Jake protests. “Now, please, if you could help me find a strangler to collaborate my lie…”

“The word you’re looking for is corroborate, and, no, I will not find a strangler for you.” Holt shakes his head melodramatically. “Just carry that engagement ring around and pick a moment that feels right. Propose to her at the library, even. You’ll know when it’s time.”

“Couldn’t you have told me this _before_ I told Amy about the strangler?”

“I could have, but it’s going to be more fun watching you scramble for an excuse.” Holt smiles, standing up to open the door. “That’ll be all, Detective. Good luck with the mission.”

Fewer heads turn to look at Jake walking out of the captain’s office, cheeks a little pink for reasons nobody could even suspect. In his head, he’s crumpling up that to-do list and finally, finally making plans to take Nana’s ring out of the recipe box.

“What happened to the strangler, Jake? I was counting on having that case file on my desk by now,” Terry says, gesturing wildly at his empty workspace.

(Okay, maybe the moment isn’t as grand as Jake thinks.)

* * *

“Okay, what if you pretend to tie your shoe and end up kneeling?” Rosa suggests. “Perfect segue into the proposal!”

Amy looks back at her puzzledly. “I don’t wear shoes with laces. What’s there to tie?”

“What if you bend down to tie _Jake’s_ shoe, then?”

“I never do that. This sounds really uncomfortable,” Amy says, tapping her pen at the notepad before her. “Weren’t you engaged to Pimento? I thought you’d be better at advice.”

Rosa purses her lips, trying not to laugh. “You call that being engaged? He asked me to marry him while we were chasing a perp! You’d have better luck just asking Terry, who basically has a relationship straight out of _Love, Actually._ Sorry I wasn’t much help.”

“No, it’s fine,” Amy replies, picking up her pad and favorite pen. “Wait, you saw _Love, Actually?_ And went out your way to tell me about it?”

“This never happened,” Rosa murmurs. “And good luck, Ames.” The second part comes out so quietly, it’s like it was barely ever there, Amy’s glance darting over to Jake’s desk. He’s fiddling with a ball of rubber bands, tossing it absentmindedly as he stares at a case file before him 一 he’s taking a break from hyperfixating on the engagement ring in the recipe box, but it’s not like Amy or Rosa would know, the same way Jake has no clue there’s a ring for him sitting two feet across from his desk.

Amy softly whispers, “Thank you. For everything.”

It turns out Terry’s taken the rest of the day off to go the spring recital at Cagney and Lacey’s ballet academy (typical perfect parent), but Amy has another burst of inspiration once she looks a few feet past the sergeant’s desk and sees Jake’s miraculously gone into the captain’s office for yet another talk.

“Gina! You’ve been engaged eight times, right?” Amy asks excitedly, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

She gulps. “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways nbc saved my life and we owe everything to them

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! comments/kudos are very much appreciated. find me at @sadtiagos on tumblr.


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